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Saturday, 15 December 2012

American Airlines employees who were dealing with phone calls made by two flight attendants on Flight 11--the first plane to be hijacked on September 11, 2001--were told by their superiors to keep quiet about what they had learned about the unfolding crisis. At a time when the airline should have been alerting as many people as possible to the serious incident that the flight attendants were describing, senior personnel were instead issuing instructions such as "Don't spread this around" and "I don't want this spread all over this office right now."

Furthermore, airline employees who were aware of the flight attendants' calls were remarkably slow to pass on what they knew to individuals and agencies that should have been alerted as a matter of urgency, such as the FBI, the FAA, and even American Airlines senior managers.

With two of its aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks, American Airlines had an important role to play on September 11. But no explanations have been given for the actions of key personnel who appear to have deliberately hindered its response to the hijacking of Flight 11. It is therefore important that we now examine closely the behavior of American Airlines staff that day.

TWO FLIGHT ATTENDANTS PHONED AMERICAN AIRLINES OFFICESA number of American Airlines employees were among the first people to be alerted to the crisis taking place in the skies over America on September 11. They learned what was happening on American Airlines Flight 11 from two flight attendants--Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney--who made phone calls from the hijacked plane.

Betty Ong called the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, at 8:18 a.m., about four minutes after Flight 11 is thought to have been hijacked. Over the next 25 minutes, she described what was happening on her plane to a number of reservations office employees. [1]

One of the employees, Nydia Gonzalez, soon realized the seriousness of the situation and, at 8:21 a.m., called the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center on a separate phone line, to alert it to the emergency. [2] The SOC, in Fort Worth, Texas, "coordinates the day-to-day, minute-by-minute operation" of American Airlines. [3] Gonzalez talked to Craig Marquis, the manager on duty there, and kept him updated with the information Ong was providing until contact with the flight attendant was lost, shortly before 8:46 a.m., when Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. [4]

Amy Sweeney made three phone calls to the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston, and in them described the catastrophic events on her plane. The first two calls, made at 8:25 a.m. and 8:29 a.m., got disconnected after less than two minutes. But Sweeney's third call, at 8:32 a.m., stayed connected until around 8:44 a.m. or 8:45 a.m. [5]

AIRLINE EMPLOYEES WERE TOLD TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT THE HIJACKINGOng and Sweeney made it clear, in their calls, that a serious crisis was taking place, lives were in danger, and anything could happen next. And yet recordings of phone calls have shown that, rather than making as much noise as possible to alert people to the emergency, senior American Airlines personnel seemed intent on suppressing the information provided by the two flight attendants.

A parent of one victim of the 9/11 attacks, who was a veteran flight attendant for United Airlines, was highly critical of the attitude of these individuals after she heard the recorded calls. "It was disgusting," she said. "The very first response was cover-up, when they should have been broadcasting this information all over the place." [6]

Transcripts of calls recorded at the American Airlines SOC reveal numerous occasions when senior personnel instructed their colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking of Flight 11. These are described below:

i) Dispatcher Was Told Not to 'Spread Around' News of the HijackingAt 8:25 a.m., SOC manager Craig Marquis called Peggy Houck, a flight dispatcher at the SOC, and asked her to try and contact the pilot of Flight 11. Marquis gave Houck several details of what was happening on the plane. He said the "number three flight attendant"--Betty Ong--had contacted the airline's reservations office in Cary and reported that there was "a passenger on board that's stabbing this flight attendant." He added that Ong had been "trying to get hold of the cockpit crew and she can't get through, and the cockpit cabin door is closed." After Houck said she would try to contact the pilot, Marquis told her: "Don't spread this around. This is between you and me right now, okay?" Houck answered, "Okay." [7]

ii) Airline Employee Told, 'We Don't Want This Getting Out'Then, shortly after 8:25 a.m., when Amy Sweeney had made her first call to the American Airlines flight services office at Logan Airport, an American Airlines employee at the airport called the SOC to ask about the hijacked plane. The employee, whose name is unreported, talked to Ray Howland, a sector manager at the SOC. He told Howland that he was on the phone with someone at the flight services office, who said they'd "got a call from a flight attendant" on a plane that "might have been hijacked." Howland clarified for the caller that the plane involved in the incident was Flight 11, but then instructed him to keep the news of the possible hijacking to himself. Howland said, "We don't want this getting out." He added: "We're aware of the situation. We're dealing with it right now. So let us deal with it." He then told the caller, again, "We don't want anything getting out right now." The airline employee replied: "Nothing said. Okay." [8]

iii) Operations Center Manager Didn't Want News 'Spread All Over'At around 8:30 a.m., at the SOC, Craig Marquis told Mike Mulcahy, the manager of SOC policies and procedures, what was happening. Marquis said the "number three flight attendant" on Flight 11 had called and said that "two male passengers on board stabbed the number one and the number five flight attendant." He said the two passengers had "broken into the cockpit" and the plane was being "flown erratically right now." Apparently still talking to Mulcahy, Marquis said he wanted "all the information on Flight 11" to be brought to him. He then said: "I don't want this spread all over this office right now. Any information that you get, send to me, okay?" [9]

iv) Supervisor Wanted Colleagues to Keep Quiet About the HijackingAround the time this conversation occurred at the SOC, employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office who were on the phone with Betty Ong were likewise instructed to keep the news of the hijacking to themselves. Nydia Gonzalez, the reservations office supervisor, told Ong that the airline had "security" working on the emergency. Presumably addressing her colleagues who were also participating in the call, Gonzalez then said: "We don't want to spread anything around. Okay?" Her colleagues apparently agreed to keep quiet about the hijacking, as she responded to them, "Excellent." [10]

Later, at around 8:44 a.m., Craig Marquis made clear to Gonzalez that he wanted her and her colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking. Referring to the information they had received from Ong, he said, "I don't want this spread all over." Gonzalez confirmed that she had "already made that indication to our people here." Marquis told her, "Try to make sure that it's followed through on." Gonzalez replied, "Okay." [11]

One of Gonzalez's colleagues who participated in the call with Ong confirmed, when she was interviewed by the FBI the following day, that she had kept quiet about the call. Vanessa Minter said that after the call ended, she had written a statement describing it. She subsequently headed to the American Airlines operations area, where she heard other people talking about the hijacking, and then later went to the lunch patio area, before heading home at around 3:30 p.m. Minter said that after it ended, she had "tried not to speak to anyone about the telephone call with Ong, since she had been told not to talk about the conversation." [12]

v) Manager at Airport Told Colleagues, 'Don't Mention This to Anyone'Employees at the American Airlines flight services office at Logan Airport were similarly told to keep quiet about the hijacking. At 8:40 a.m., Nancy Wyatt, a manager at the office, called Ray Howland at the SOC to pass on the information her office was receiving from Amy Sweeney. Around six minutes into the call, Wyatt turned to one of her colleagues and instructed them: "Evelyn, don't mention this to anyone. Me, you, Beth. Just the five of us, okay?"

A couple of minutes later, Howland made clear that he wanted Wyatt and her colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking: When Wyatt asked, "What do you want us to do as far as just keeping our mouths shut and not ... ?" he answered, "That's basically it." [13]

vi) Information Was Withheld From the Crew of Flight 11Curiously, earlier in the call, Howland told Wyatt that he wanted some information to be withheld from Sweeney and the other crew members on Flight 11. Wyatt had said that the plane's flight attendants were "concerned" because they "don't know what's going on in the cockpit." In response, Howland said the SOC was "trying to get in contact with the cockpit," but he added, "We don't really want to tell her [i.e. Sweeney] that." Wyatt agreed not to tell Sweeney, saying: "Okay, don't. Okay, okay. Got it."

And a couple of minutes later, Wyatt asked Howland if he knew where Flight 11 was heading. Howland said the plane appeared to be going to JFK International Airport in New York, but he then added, "I mean, we don't really want to give a whole lot of information to that flight." Wyatt answered: "Okay, we're not. We're not giving them that information to that flight." [14]

OPERATIONS CENTER WAS SLOW TO PASS ON NEWS OF THE HIJACKINGAnother troubling aspect of the response of American Airlines to the hijacking of Flight 11 is its slowness to pass on details of the emergency to individuals and agencies that should have been notified without delay.

i) Operations Center Did Not Mention Ong Call to the FAAOne government agency that American Airlines should have contacted promptly, and provided with the information it had received from Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates civil aviation and is responsible for operating a system of air traffic control. American Airlines informed the 9/11 Commission that "in emergencies, the SOC was generally responsible for notifying the FAA/air traffic control, Department of Defense, and Coast Guard." [15]

The SOC first contacted the FAA to discuss Flight 11 at 8:29 a.m., eight minutes after Nydia Gonzalez alerted it to the problems on the aircraft. At that time, after being asked to do so by Craig Marquis, SOC air traffic control specialist Bill Halleck called the FAA's Boston Center and said he wanted to find out "what you know about our Flight 11." Halleck was told that the Boston Center had lost communication with the flight; it had lost the plane's transponder signal; and the plane had deviated from its flight path. He was also told that an air traffic controller heard a radio communication from the plane in which a threatening voice in the background said, "Return to an airport … or I'll kill you, or something to that effect."

It is unclear whether Halleck had explicitly been instructed to keep quiet about the call from Ong. All the same, in his call with the Boston Center, he made no mention of the ongoing conversation with the flight attendant or the information she had provided about the crisis on Flight 11. [16]

ii) Operations Center Made no Calls to the MilitarySOC personnel also failed to contact the Department of Defense about the hijacking. It was pointed out to Craig Marquis, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, that even though the loss of Flight 11's transponder signal prevented air traffic controllers from seeing the plane's altitude, the military could have determined the altitude by observing Flight 11's "primary target" on its radar scopes. Had the airline wanted to know the plane's altitude, therefore, someone at the SOC could presumably have just contacted the military and requested the information. However, Marquis told the 9/11 Commission, "No one from the American Airlines SOC called any military entity that day." [17]

iii) Airline Was Slow to Notify the FBI, in Line With the 'Well-Researched Hijack-Response Plan'American Airlines was also slow to alert the FBI to the crisis. The man who notified the FBI was Larry Wansley, the airline's managing director of corporate security. On September 11, Wansley was working at American Airlines' headquarters, which is in Fort Worth, about a mile away from the SOC. Despite his key position at the airline, he only learned there was a problem with an American Airlines plane just before Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. Wansley was going into the office of Robert Baker, the vice chairman of American Airlines, to participate in the airline's daily 8:45 a.m. conference call, when Baker's secretary told him, "We have a hijacking."

Wansley phoned the SOC for further details, but, he told the 9/11 Commission, "they didn't have much information." He then called Danny Defenbaugh, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas field office, to tell him that Flight 11 had been hijacked. Prior to Wansley's call, Defenbaugh had known nothing of the incident.

Wansley's call to Defenbaugh was "the first step in the well-researched, secret hijack-response plan all commercial airlines have in place," according to the Dallas Observer. But it was made perhaps 25 minutes or more after Betty Ong had reached American Airlines personnel on the ground and told them, "I think we're getting hijacked."

While he was on the phone with Defenbaugh, Wansley heard screams coming from an adjacent room, as several airline employees saw the coverage of the crash at the WTC on television. He then saw the coverage himself. But, he told the 9/11 Commission, "he did not connect the hijacking with the incident at [the] WTC because the commentator [on television] said that it was a small airplane" that had crashed. Wansley saw the second plane hitting the WTC live on television at 9:03 a.m. At that point, he told the 9/11 Commission, "he immediately felt that the first [plane to hit the WTC] was probably American 11." However, he remained on the phone with Defenbaugh (he has said that the call lasted "nearly one hour") and only headed to the SOC shortly before 10:00 a.m. [18]

iv) Senior Airline Managers Were Alerted to the Hijacking Around the Time Flight 11 Hit the WTCAmerican Airlines was even slow to notify many of its managers about the crisis. Some managers learned what was happening during their regular morning conference call.

Every morning, American Airlines held an operational conference call, in which senior personnel usually discussed what had happened with the airline in the past 24 hours and what was expected to happen in the coming day. [19] But shortly after the conference call began on September 11, Joseph Bertapelle, a manager at the SOC, announced, "Gentlemen, I have some information here I need to relay." [20] He then passed on much of the information about the hijacking of Flight 11 that Bill Halleck and Craig Marquis had received. [21]

The conference call was held at 8:45 a.m. (Eastern time) every day, which means the high-level personnel who participated in it learned of the problems with Flight 11 around 25 minutes after the SOC was first alerted to the emergency.

Other senior personnel appear to have received their first official notification of the crisis in a pager message that was sent out several minutes after Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. At 8:42 a.m., shortly after Bill Halleck told him that FAA controllers were treating Flight 11 as a hijacking, Craig Marquis instructed a colleague to send out a notification, by pager, to 50 or 60 key American Airlines officials, to let them know what was happening. [22] The message stated, "Confirmed hijacking Flight 11," according to the Wall Street Journal. [23] According to information recorded by senior American Airlines personnel, the pager message went out at 8:49 a.m.--seven minutes after Marquis requested it and three minutes after Flight 11 hit the WTC. [24]

Even Donald Carty, the chairman and CEO of American Airlines, was only told that one of his planes had been hijacked around the time that Flight 11 crashed. Carty was at home answering e-mails, instead of at his office, when Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney made their calls from Flight 11. [25] He later recalled that he learned of the emergency when he received "a call from our operations people"--presumably someone at the SOC--"to tell me that one of our airplanes had been hijacked, that there was a flight attendant on the phone, and the airplane had been hijacked." Carty told the caller he would be out "immediately," but before he reached the door, he has said, "it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should check whether the press had the story, and I turned on the TV, and almost at the moment I turned on the TV, I saw them talking about something that struck the World Trade Center." [26]

AIRLINE WAS SLOW TO ACTIVATE ITS CRISIS COMMAND CENTERAnother example of the slowness of American Airlines personnel in responding to the hijacking of Flight 11 is the late time at which they activated the System Operations Command Center (SOCC) to manage the emergency.

The SOCC is a dedicated crisis response facility, located on the floor above, and overlooking, the SOC. It would be activated in emergencies, such as major accidents and hijackings, so as to enable the airline to isolate an event and gather together the people needed to manage it. The facility would then have "the primary responsibility for support of accident recovery from start to finish." American Airlines employees regarded the SOCC as their "war room." [27]

After it was activated on September 11, the SOCC "was primarily responsible for dealing with the emergency," according to Craig Parfitt, who served as one of the SOCC's directors that day. [28] The 9/11 Commission was told that the airline's "key decisions on the immediate response to the 9/11 hijackings were made in the SOCC." [29]

However, evidence indicates that the SOCC was only activated around the time that Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center--well after the SOC was alerted to the crisis. For example, at about 8:47 a.m.--one minute after the crash--Ray Howland told a caller to the SOC, "We've got the command center activated." [30] Parfitt told the 9/11 Commission that the SOCC was being set up after the airline's 8:45 a.m. conference call. He said he arrived there, along with other senior managers, at around 8:55 a.m. And Craig Marquis recalled that he noticed activity in the SOCC at about 8:50 a.m. [31]

OPERATIONS CENTER PERSONNEL WERE SLOW TO REALIZE FLIGHT 11 WAS HIJACKEDWhen Betty Ong called the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office, one of the first things she said was, "I think we're getting hijacked." [32] And yet SOC employees have claimed that for some time after they were first told of the problems with Flight 11, they did not realize the plane had been hijacked.

Although Nydia Gonzalez promptly called Craig Marquis at the SOC, at 8:21 a.m., to relay the information Ong was providing, Marquis told the 9/11 Commission that he "did not assume the plane was hijacked with the information he had from Gonzalez at that time." He recalled that he was told that "Ong had reported that she could not reach the pilots by the internal communications system on the plane," but he said he had "assumed this meant the pilots were busy executing an emergency landing, and that explained why the cockpit crew weren't answering the dispatcher trying to raise them repeatedly on ACARS [a text messaging system] and the radio." He said that "at the outset, he was wondering where the flight was going to be taken to land." [33]

Marquis claimed, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, that he only "knew conclusively a hijack was underway when it was confirmed the hijackers were in the cockpit." [34] This would presumably mean he came to the realization at around 8:25 a.m., when Gonzalez told him that Ong had said "two men"--i.e. hijackers--were "in the cockpit with the pilots," or possibly three minutes later, when Gonzalez repeated this information to him. [35]

However, a phone call transcript indicates that Marquis only realized--or, at least, only acknowledged--that Flight 11 had been hijacked at around 8:40 a.m. At that time, he told his colleague Bill Halleck, "Tell [air traffic control] to handle this as an emergency." Halleck replied, "They have in there, it's been hijacked." Marquis then said: "It is. Okay." When he next talked to Gonzalez, Marquis said: "We contacted air traffic control. They are gonna handle this as a confirmed hijacking." [36]

Remarkably, during the entire time she was on the phone with Marquis--a period of almost 25 minutes--Gonzalez never said explicitly that Ong's plane had been hijacked. [37] No explanation has been given as to why this was the case.

Bill Halleck apparently also did not immediately realize Flight 11 had been hijacked when he learned there were problems with the plane. According to the account he gave to the 9/11 Commission in 2004, Halleck only suspected the flight had been hijacked around 12 minutes after Gonzalez alerted the SOC to the emergency. At 8:33 a.m., he passed on to Marquis the information he had been given when he called the FAA's Boston Center, at 8:29 a.m., to find out what was happening with Flight 11. "At this point," Halleck told the 9/11 Commission, he was "thinking that it was a hijacking." [38]

THE KEY ROLE OF THE OPERATIONS CENTER MANAGERWhen examining American Airlines' response to the 9/11 attacks, the actions of Craig Marquis deserve particular scrutiny, because of the crucial role Marquis had to play in that response.

As the manager on duty at the SOC on September 11, the 9/11 Commission was informed, Marquis would have been "responsible for assigning the security level for the incident." There were three possible security levels he could assign: level I, for a major accident or incident; level II, for minor damage; and level III, for a minor incident. If the SOC manager determined an incident to be a level I event, they were required "to provide basically the same initial response whether it is a terrorist threat or a technical failure." [39]

When Nydia Gonzalez called Marquis, the first thing she said about Flight 11 was that one of the flight attendants was "advising our reps that the pilot--everyone's been stabbed." She added, "They can't get into the cockpit is what I'm hearing." [40] Marquis should presumably, therefore, have immediately declared the incident to be a "level I" event and acted accordingly. Whether he did is unknown.

As the SOC manager, Marquis was also "responsible for verifying all critical notifications." [41] Marquis and several other American Airlines managers told the 9/11 Commission that "in the event that the American Airlines SOC was aware that it was the first to know about an incident," the protocol was for the manager on duty (i.e. Marquis) to immediately call the manager at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, and pass on to them the details of the incident. But Marquis and his colleagues said the airline "had a hard time on 9/11 in getting in touch with Herndon," and so "precious minutes were lost in building the communications bridge." [42]

Additionally, the 9/11 Commission was informed, Marquis, as the SOC manager, would have been responsible for activating the SOCC. [43] This would indicate that he was responsible for the long delay--apparently around 25 minutes--between the SOC being alerted to the problems on Flight 11 and the SOCC being activated. It is, in fact, unclear if Marquis gave the instruction to activate the SOCC or if someone else made the decision to do so.

'BELLS AND WHISTLES SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOING OFF' AT AMERICAN AIRLINESThe evidence described above raises many questions about the behavior of several key American Airlines employees who dealt with the phone calls made by Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, or were otherwise involved in the airline's response to the hijacking of Flight 11. Some of their actions seem inexplicable, considering the serious and unprecedented nature of the crisis they were faced with on September 11.

Why did it take airline personnel so long to activate the System Operations Command Center? Why did it take them so long to notify the FBI, and even many of their own senior managers, about the emergency? Why wasn't the FAA's Boston Center told about the call from Ong when it was first contacted about Flight 11? And why didn't the System Operations Control center contact the military?

The attitude of some American Airlines personnel, who tried to suppress the news of the hijacking by instructing their colleagues to keep quiet about it, is particularly notable. As was pointed out by the father of one of the flight attendants on Flight 11 (other than Ong and Sweeney) after he heard the recordings of American Airlines phone calls from September 11, it is "alarming" that the airline "would want to hold something as horrific as a hijacking among a few people, when bells and whistles should have been going off in all categories of responsibility." [44]

But why did senior airline personnel want the news of the hijacking suppressed? And did their actions impair the overall response to the terrorist attacks? Certainly, they seem to have had some effect. Vanessa Minter, who kept quiet about the call with Betty Ong, as she was instructed to, has recalled that she "didn't really actually find out what had happened" at the World Trade Center "until later on that day, till almost 4 o'clock." She added, "I knew something bad had happened, but actually what had happened, I really didn't have any idea." [45] In other words, one of the key people involved in the response to the first hijacking apparently knew less about the attacks in New York than most members of the public did.

Investigations have failed to adequately examine the poor response of American Airlines to the 9/11 attacks and inquire why the airline wanted its employees to keep quiet about the first hijacking. But it is crucial that we dig deeper and find out what was really going on, and why, at American Airlines on September 11.

Friday, 26 October 2012

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, was originally going to be at a public event near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, but a late change to his plans meant the event was rescheduled and he was out of harm's way when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Romney is therefore one of a number of prominent individuals known to have avoided danger--and possible death--due to a change to, or a deviation from, their plans for September 11.

Romney was, at that time, the president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He went to Washington, DC, on September 10 to talk to members of Congress about security at the Winter Olympics. [1] The final $12.7 million of federal money needed to cover security for the games had mistakenly been omitted from Congress's budget, and although the Olympics organizers were "confident" the error could be corrected, Romney went to Washington to make sure the money didn't "slip away," according to the Deseret News. [2] As well as meeting with members of Congress on September 10, Romney also met with FBI Director Robert Mueller that day. [3]

ROMNEY WAS SET TO ATTEND EVENT IN BATTERY PARKMitt Romney's original plan for the morning of September 11 was to attend what Romney called "an elaborate press conference" in Battery Park, just a few blocks south of the World Trade Center, at which the names of the torchbearers selected to carry the Olympic flame across the United States to Salt Lake City would be announced. Those who would have attended, along with Romney, included other SLOC officials, representatives of the Olympic torch relay sponsors, and a number of torchbearers from the New York area. [4] The event was set to take place at 9:00 a.m., around the time that planes crashed into the Twin Towers. [5]

The original date for the press conference had been set by the SLOC's "public relations people," according to Romney. [6] But a couple of weeks before September 11, the event was rescheduled to take place on September 12 instead of September 11. [7] The reason for this, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, was that "Romney had extended a series of meetings in Washington with U.S. Congressional leaders." [8] Cindy Gillespie, the vice president of federal relations for the SLOC, had arranged a meeting with House and Senate appropriators at 10:00 a.m. on September 11. Romney has written that on the morning of September 11, therefore, he was with Gillespie in her office in Washington, helping to put the finishing touches on their presentation. [9]

As a result of this late change of plans, Mitt Romney was well away from the WTC at the time of the terrorist attacks there. A spokeswoman later commented that it was "really a blessing" that the date of the SLOC press conference was changed. "We were very fortunate," she said. The Deseret News noted that those set to attend the event in Battery Park "would have been standing near the base of [the] World Trade Center when airplanes slammed into it had SLOC president Mitt Romney's schedule not changed." [10]

BATTERY PARK WAS CAUGHT IN THE DUST CLOUD WHEN THE WTC COLLAPSEDAlthough it was about half a mile from the World Trade Center, Battery Park was still a dangerous place to be when the Twin Towers collapsed, as has been made clear by people who were there at the time. For example, Lisa Stein, the deputy national editor of U.S. News & World Report, was just north of the park when the South Tower came down at 9:59 a.m. on September 11. She described what it was like there, writing: "All hell broke loose. The air filled with thick smoke and ash. Emergency crews screamed at us to leave. There was a new sense of danger and panic. People rushed to get to the tip of Manhattan." Stein continued: "[T]he smoke was moving so fast I could barely breathe or see. I thought we were going to choke to death. Everyone was drenched in soot and smoke. People covered their faces with their shirts or anything they could find to keep from inhaling ash and smoke." [11]

Brian Gregorek was also in Battery Park when the South Tower came down. When the "plume of soot and ashes" from the collapse "worked its way toward Battery Park," he and many others reportedly "huddled on the ground, pulling their shirts over their faces so they could breathe." Gregorek has recalled: "When I peeked out, I couldn't see two feet in front of my face. People were being trampled. I was terrified; all I could think of was, 'How do I get out of here?'" Gregorek added: "I was praying, thinking of my family and friends. I didn't really know how much danger I was in, but I prepared myself for death." [12]

Romney and the other people set to attend the SLOC press conference avoided this terrifying scene because their event was moved back a day, to accommodate Romney's schedule. Furthermore, had the press conference taken place on September 11, as originally planned, it is possible that Romney or others at the event would have headed toward the World Trade Center after the planes hit the Twin Towers, to see what was happening. Had they done so, they could have been in particular danger when the towers collapsed.

In fact, even though the press conference had been rescheduled, one of Romney's colleagues, SLOC spokeswoman Caroline Shaw, was supposed to be in Battery Park at 9:00 a.m. on September 11 to prepare for the following day's event. But, fortunately, she was in the lobby of her hotel when the attacks occurred and came to no harm. [13]

OTHER PEOPLE AVOIDED BEING AT THE WTC ON SEPTEMBER 11 DUE TO A CHANGE OF PLANSOther prominent individuals, besides Mitt Romney, are known to have avoided the chaos--and the possibility of being killed--when the Twin Towers were attacked and subsequently collapsed on September 11, because of changes to, or deviations from, their original plans.

For example, Jim Pierce, a cousin of then-President George W. Bush, should have been at a business conference on the 105th floor of the South Tower. But on September 10, it was decided that the meeting would take place in a different building, reportedly because the number of people scheduled to attend it "had outgrown the conference room" in the South Tower. [14] And Larry Silverstein, the WTC leaseholder, should have been at work on the 88th floor of the North Tower at the time of the attacks, but, instead, he was at home. Reportedly, this was because his wife had insisted that he go to an appointment with his dermatologist that morning. [15]

Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Britain's Prince Andrew, should have been on the 101st floor of the North Tower for a meeting at 8:45 a.m. on September 11--a minute before the plane hit the tower. However, according to ABC News, she "was running late" and so she arrived at the door of the tower "seconds after the first plane hit." Her car then "sped off to safety." [16] And pop star Michael Jackson was supposed to be at a meeting at the top of one of the WTC towers that morning, but missed it because, he said, he'd overslept. [17]

It is plausible that some people changed their plans, or deviated from their schedule, and thereby avoided being at, or near, the World Trade Center when the 9/11 attacks occurred simply as a result of luck. However, investigators should determine whether any of these cases of apparent good fortune were due to something more sinister.

Could some people have changed their plans, or made sure they were running late, because they were advised to do so by individuals who had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and therefore knew it would be dangerous to be in the vicinity of the WTC on the morning of September 11? If anyone did indeed know in advance what was going to happen, this would imply that the terrorist attacks could, and should, have been prevented.

Sunday, 19 August 2012

When the terrorist attacks began on September 11, 2001, numerous U.S. intelligence agencies and facilities that should have been closely following the catastrophic events taking place in the skies over America were unaware that anything was wrong. Because of their particular responsibilities and their advanced capabilities, agencies such as the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) should have been among the first to learn the details of the crisis. But, instead, they were apparently in an information blackout, and their knowledge of the attacks was limited to what they could learn from television reports.

The fact that key intelligence agencies and facilities experienced this problem, and all at the same time, suggests that the information blackout may have been intentional--an act of sabotage committed by the perpetrators of the attacks. Such an act could have been intended to render these agencies and facilities useless when their services were urgently needed, thereby helping to ensure that the attacks were successful.

MILITARY OFFICERS UNSUCCESSFULLY SOUGHT INFORMATION ABOUT THE ATTACKSThe lack of awareness of the crisis on September 11 is highlighted in the accounts of two military officers who contacted numerous facilities in their attempts to learn more about the attacks. These officers were Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stuart, an intelligence officer at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), and Major David McNulty, the senior intelligence officer of the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard at Andrews Air Force Base. [1]

Stuart and McNulty's units had crucial roles to play on September 11. NEADS, based in Rome, New York, was responsible for coordinating the U.S. military's response to the hijackings. [2] And "air defense around Washington, DC," according to Knight Ridder, was provided "mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base," which is just 10 miles from the capital. [3] The DC Air National Guard was in fact known as the "Capital Guardians." [4] It was therefore essential that Stuart and McNulty be provided with up-to-the-minute information on the attacks. That, however, did not happen.

NEADS was alerted to the first hijacking--that of American Airlines Flight 11--just before 8:38 a.m. on September 11, when an air traffic controller called to report the incident and request military assistance. [5] Beginning at around 8:48 a.m., Mark Stuart contacted several facilities to see if they had any information on the hijacking, beyond what he had already learned. These facilities included the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center, the National Military Joint Intelligence Center, and the 1st Air Force headquarters. None of them could provide any additional information. A colleague of Stuart's checked the SIPRNET--the U.S. military Internet system--for relevant information, but also without success. [6]

At Andrews Air Force Base, about five minutes or so after he learned that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center (the crash occurred at 9:03 a.m.), McNulty went to his "intel vault" and began seeking relevant information. He too checked the SIPRNET. He called agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. He also called units such as the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron and the 609th Air Intelligence Squadron. But he was unable to find out anything more than he had already learned from television reports. [7]

Other accounts provide further details of the lack of awareness of the catastrophic events within the military and other government agencies. Indeed, the information blackout appears to have been almost universal. One government official commented that the U.S. was "deaf, dumb, and blind" for much of September 11. [8]

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS NOTICED EARLY SIGNS OF THE CRISISAlthough many key facilities were unaware of what was happening at the time the WTC towers were hit, indications of the crisis had been evident much earlier on. These indications were received or noticed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for operating the U.S. air traffic control system, or by American Airlines.

The first sign that something was wrong came nearly 33 minutes before Flight 11 crashed into the WTC, when communication with the plane was lost. Just before 8:14 a.m., the plane's crew failed to respond to an instruction to climb to 35,000 feet. The air traffic controller at the FAA's Boston Center who was handling Flight 11 tried repeatedly to contact the plane over the next 10 minutes, but without success. [9]

Boston Center controllers noticed a further indication of the emergency at 8:21 a.m., when Flight 11's transponder--the equipment that transmits identifying information about a plane to radar screens--was turned off. This, according to the Christian Science Monitor, was "something more worrisome" than the loss of radio contact. [10]

Then, at around 8:25 a.m., the controller handling Flight 11 heard a couple of suspicious radio transmissions, apparently made by a hijacker on Flight 11, which led him to conclude that the plane had been hijacked. At that point, the Boston Center began notifying its chain of command within the FAA of the suspected hijacking. [11]

A minute later, at 8:26 a.m., Boston Center controllers noticed Flight 11 drastically changing course, turning sharply to the south. [12] This was a significant development. Darrel Smith, an intelligence officer working at FAA headquarters that morning, has commented that he was particularly alarmed when he learned about it, because such a deviation was like "changing directions off I-95 north and heading south." Flight 11's change of course "jeopardized the other flights in the surrounding airspace," he said. [13]

AIRLINE RECEIVED EARLY NOTIFICATION OF THE EMERGENCY IN CALLS FROM FLIGHT ATTENDANTSAmerican Airlines, like the FAA, was aware of the crisis well before the first plane hit the WTC. At 8:19 a.m., Betty Ong, one of the flight attendants on Flight 11, contacted the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, and, in a 25-minute phone call, relayed crucial information about what was happening on her plane. A couple of minutes after Ong's call began, a supervisor at the reservations office called the American Airlines System Operations Control Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and alerted it to the information that Ong was providing. And at 8:32 a.m., Amy Sweeney, another of the plane's flight attendants, reached the American Airlines flight services office in Boston. In a 12-minute phone call, she provided details of the crisis to the manager there.

In their calls, Ong and Sweeney made clear the seriousness of the situation. They reported that Flight 11 had been hijacked and that the hijackers were in the cockpit; two flight attendants had been stabbed; one passenger had his throat slashed and died as a result; and there was a bomb in the cockpit. [14]

But while American Airlines and the FAA knew details of the emergency early on, other agencies and facilities that should also have been closely following the crisis were unaware that anything was wrong. So when Mark Stuart, at NEADS, contacted a number of intelligence facilities, beginning shortly after the first plane hit the WTC, he found they had no information beyond what he already knew. [15] And David McNulty, at Andrews Air Force Base, has recalled that when he did the same, beginning several minutes after the second plane hit the WTC, he felt like he was "waking up the national agencies" and found that the agencies he called "had nothing to report." [16]

FBI'S OPERATIONS CENTER HAD KEY ROLE IN U.S. RESPONSE TO TERRORISMMark Stuart called the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) to report the hijacking of Flight 11. Stuart told the 9/11 Commission that he made the call at around 8:48 a.m. This was two minutes after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [17]

The SIOC should have been well suited to handling the 9/11 attacks. The United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan of January 2001 stated that the SIOC's role was "to coordinate and manage the national level support to a terrorism incident." [18] The purpose of the center, according to FBI officials, was "to keep the FBI updated on any crisis through sophisticated computers and communications equipment."

The SIOC, which opened in 1998, was a 40,000-square-foot facility on the fifth floor of the FBI's headquarters in Washington. It was designed to handle up to five crises at the same time, and, during a major emergency, could accommodate up to 450 people. [19]

The SIOC functioned as a 24-hour watch post and crisis management center. [20] It had 10-member watch teams on duty at all times. These teams included a representative from the NSA's Cryptologic Security Group, who could provide information from the government's worldwide electronic eavesdropping. [21] The center's 225 computer terminals had access to three types of local area networks: the regular FBI network that could connect to the networks of outside agencies; a classified network that operated at the level of Top Secret; and an even more highly classified Special Compartmented Information network. [22]

FBI agents and top officials, along with representatives from many other government agencies, went to the SIOC on September 11 in response to the terrorist attacks. [23] John Ashcroft, the attorney general at the time, told the 9/11 Commission that "the SIOC was the place to be to get information and so everyone wanted to be there." [24]

SOPHISTICATED OPERATIONS CENTER 'HAD NOTHING' ON THE ATTACKSAnd yet, despite the center's key responsibilities and its advanced capabilities, personnel in this state-of-the-art command post were apparently no better informed about the 9/11 attacks than members of the public watching the events on television. Stuart has recalled that when he called the SIOC, the center "had no information to pass that could shed light on the nature of the American Air 11 hijacking." Stuart was handed off to two or three individuals at the center. He explained to them what was happening and asked for law enforcement information. But, Stuart has said, "They had nothing." One of the people that Stuart spoke to said to him, "Oh shit, I have to go," and then hung up. [25]

Fred Stremmel, an FBI counterterrorism analyst, was in the SIOC when the attacks began and has described events there. According to his account, those in the center only realized the U.S. was under terrorist attack when they saw the second plane hitting the WTC on television.

Stremmel learned of the crisis that morning when a colleague in the SIOC told him about the first plane hitting the WTC. A crowd was watching the television coverage of the crash on a giant video screen, and Stremmel saw the second plane hitting the WTC when it was broadcast live, at 9:03 a.m. According to journalist and author Garrett Graff, at that time, "Everyone in the operations center stood there stunned." Stremmel has commented that after seeing the second crash on TV, those in the SIOC "probably knew it was terrorism, but we were in denial. It's like being told you have cancer. You want to deny it for as long as possible." [26]

Even the FBI's top officials were apparently no more aware of what was happening than members of the public were. FBI Director Robert Mueller was holding his daily briefing in his conference room at the FBI headquarters when the attacks began. All of the bureau's assistant directors were with him, including Dale Watson, the head of counterterrorism. They all learned of the crisis when someone interrupted the briefing and told them a plane had crashed into the WTC. However, they were initially unclear about whether this was a terrorist attack. "How could a plane not see the tower? It's so clear out today," Mueller reportedly said. Some of the group then went to the office of Deputy Director Thomas Pickard. There they saw the second crash live on television and realized for certain that this was terrorism. Only then did Watson go to his office and activate the SIOC for crisis mode, and Pickard and Mueller quickly made their way to the SIOC. [27]

Agents at the FBI's Washington, DC, field office were just as poorly informed. The Washington field office was one of the facilities David McNulty called after the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, hit the South Tower of the WTC. However, it could provide him with no additional information on the crisis. "It was a fruitless effort," McNulty has commented. [28]

PENTAGON INTELLIGENCE CENTER HAD 'NO ADDITIONAL RELEVANT INFORMATION'After calling the SIOC, Mark Stuart called the National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC) about the hijacking of Flight 11. [29] The NMJIC, which is located in the Joint Staff area of the Pentagon, constantly monitors worldwide developments for any looming crisis that might require U.S. involvement. [30] Agencies such as the CIA and the NSA have full-time representatives there. According to James Clapper, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, "During actual crises, NMJIC serves as a clearinghouse for all requests for national-level intelligence information." [31]

The NMJIC should presumably, therefore, have been aware of the crisis on September 11 from the outset. But when Stuart called the Air Force desk there, he found that the NMJIC "had no additional relevant information" it could provide him with. [32] Furthermore, personnel in the NMJIC appear to have remained poorly informed about the unfolding emergency after Stuart contacted them, and they were even unaware that their building had been hit when it was attacked at 9:37 a.m.

Marc Garlasco, a senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, was in the NMJIC on September 11. Garlasco has recalled that he was in a meeting that morning and only learned of the crisis when a colleague said to him, "Oh, you know, [the World Trade Center has] been hit." He then started watching the television coverage of the crash and therefore saw Flight 175 hitting the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

However, when the Pentagon was attacked over 30 minutes later, Garlasco was unaware that his building had been hit. The NMJIC is on the opposite side of the Pentagon to where the impact occurred, so Garlasco did not feel or hear the explosion from the attack. More significantly, considering that the NMJIC presumably had advanced capabilities and also had a key role to play during an event like 9/11, those in the center apparently were not immediately informed of the attack on the Pentagon by any other means. Garlasco has recalled that he "was really still surprised when the boys in black pajamas ran into the office with their submachine guns and screamed, 'Evacuate, we've just been hit.'" (Presumably "the boys in black pajamas" were members of the Defense Protective Service--the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon.) [33]

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY LEARNED OF THE ATTACKS FROM CNNAnother agency we might reasonably expect to have been following the 9/11 attacks from the outset is the National Security Agency. This is one of the facilities that David McNulty contacted in his search for information. [34]

The NSA, at Fort Meade, Maryland, is responsible for collecting and analyzing foreign communications, and protecting U.S. government communications and information systems. Author James Bamford, an expert on the agency, called it "the largest, most secret, and most advanced spy organization on the planet." In 2001, it had around 38,000 employees, which was more than the CIA and FBI combined. [35]

And yet McNulty has recalled that when he phoned the NSA's "24-hour information desk" at some time after the second plane hit the WTC, "they knew nothing more than I did." McNulty has commented, "We were all getting our information from CNN." [36]

Even Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA at the time, was unaware of the crisis when the WTC towers were hit. Hayden was in his office, holding a routine meeting with a few senior agency officials, when he received his first notification of what was happening. His executive assistant came in and told him a plane had hit the World Trade Center. [37] Hayden thought the crash was probably a "horrible accident." [38] "The immediate image I had was a light plane, off course, bad flying," he has said.

Hayden walked over to his desk, on which a television was showing the coverage of the burning WTC. Hayden "thought that was a big fire for a small plane," he has recalled. All the same, he continued with his meeting. [39] Hayden only realized the U.S. was under terrorist attack when his executive assistant came in again, shortly after 9:00 a.m., and told him about the second plane hitting the WTC. At that point, he has recalled, "it removed all doubt from me ... that this had to be an attack." [40]

NSA'S 'WARNING BELL FOR A PLANNED ATTACK' LEARNED OF THE CRISIS FROM TVThe NSA's lack of awareness is particularly notable because the agency has a facility that is meant to detect when an attack is about to take place. The Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center (DEFSMAC), located in the NSA's main operations building, is intended to serve as "the nation's chief warning bell for a planned attack on America," according to Bamford.

DEFSMAC "serves as the focal point for 'all-source' intelligence--listening posts, early-warning satellites, human agents, and seismic detectors," and its analysts spend their time "closely monitoring all intercepts flooding in; examining the latest overhead photography; and analyzing data from early-warning satellites 22,300 miles above the equator." The center will then "flash the intelligence to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, and other emergency command centers."

A former NSA official explained that DEFSMAC "has all the inputs from all the assets and is a warning activity. They probably have a better feel for any worldwide threat to this country from missiles, aircraft, or overt military activities, better and more timely, at instant fingertip availability, than any group in the United States."

And yet DEFSMAC failed to pick up the signs of the 9/11 attacks. Bamford noted, "On the morning of September 11, DEFSMAC learned of the massive airborne attacks after the fact--not from America's multibillion-dollar spy satellites or its worldwide network of advanced listening posts, or its army of human spies, but from a dusty, off-the-shelf TV set."

DEFSMAC's failure would have had serious consequences. According to Bamford, "Upon receiving indicators that an attack was imminent, DEFSMAC officials would immediately send out near-real-time and in-depth, all-source intelligence alerts to almost 200 'customers,' including the White House Situation Room, the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, the DIA Alert Center, and listening posts around the world." [41] But because DEFSMAC failed to pick up signs of the 9/11 attacks, these "customers" would have lacked the early warning the center should have provided.

MILITARY INTERNET SYSTEM HAD NO RELEVANT INFORMATIONWhile they were seeking information on the terrorist attacks, an intelligence officer at NEADS and David McNulty at Andrews Air Force Base checked the "SIPRNET." [42] This is the U.S. Department of Defense's version of the Internet, which can handle classified information, up to the secret level. [43]

The SIPRNET should have been a valuable tool for keeping military personnel updated with the latest information on the attacks. Colonel Brian Meenan, the director of the military cell at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, explained the benefits of his unit having a SIPRNET terminal installed shortly before 9/11. He said that having the terminal meant "we could immediately look at NORAD and [Defense Department] plans as they evolved; filter, package, and format them, then walk out to the [FAA] national operations manager--who had control of the entire national airspace system--and give him current visibility into ... fighter, tanker, and support aircraft activities." [44]

And yet McNulty was unable to find out anything more from the SIPRNET than what he had learned from television. [45] At NEADS, Mark Stuart instructed a colleague to search the SIPRNET for information relating to the attacks. But Stuart has recalled that his colleague "found none that morning or afternoon." [46]

OTHER MILITARY UNITS HAD 'NO FURTHER INFORMATION'Stuart and McNulty contacted several military units as they sought information about the attacks, but without success. McNulty called the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and the 609th Air Intelligence Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, but both were unable to provide him with any new information. [47] And Stuart, after contacting the NMJIC, called an intelligence officer with the 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. But, Stuart has recalled, the 1st Air Force had "no further information" on the attacks. [48]

Other accounts reveal that personnel in the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado--another key facility--were similarly unaware of what was happening. The Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC), according to NORAD, collected data "from a worldwide system of satellites, radars, and other sensors, and processes that information on sophisticated computer systems to support critical NORAD and U.S. Space Command missions." [49] The Toronto Star reported that the center's role was "to fuse every critical piece of information NORAD has into a concise and crystalline snapshot." [50] Airman described CMOC personnel as "the eyes and ears of North America," and stated that "nothing escapes their unsleeping watch." [51]

And since NORAD is the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace, we might reasonably expect personnel in its operations center to have been very much aware of the crisis taking place in the skies over America on September 11. But, as officers who were on duty in the CMOC that day have made clear, this was not the case.

Lieutenant Colonel William Glover said that the morning of September 11 was his "first time ... thinking about the fog of war, because we didn't know what was going on." [52] Lieutenant Colonel Steven Armstrong recalled that those in the CMOC "were out there in an information void, just looking for anything that we could find." [53] Armstrong said, "The majority of the information we're getting at the time is literally off the TV." [54] And Major General Rick Findley commented, "We were a little bit behind the power curve most of that morning as we were trying to figure out exactly what transpired." [55]

WAS THE INFORMATION BLACKOUT CAUSED BY SABOTAGE?The evidence described above raises many questions that require serious investigation. Other facilities, besides those discussed here, were presumably in the same "information void" during the 9/11 attacks. Investigators and researchers should determine if this was the case. If it was, which facilities were affected, and what problems did they experience?

We also need to know when key facilities and agencies, such as those contacted by Mark Stuart and David McNulty, finally gained a greater awareness of the crisis and became able to make use of their own capabilities, rather than having to rely on television reports as their main source of information. And we need to determine what caused the information blackout. Have previous investigations looked into this? If so, what did they find?

If, as previously suggested, the lack of awareness within the U.S. government and military of the catastrophic events on September 11 was due to sabotage, this would have serious implications. The 19 young Arabs accused of hijacking four planes and carrying out the attacks would surely have lacked the capability to cause an information blackout across numerous intelligence facilities. Highly skilled individuals with knowledge and experience of how the military and intelligence agencies operate must presumably have been involved. If this was the case, it would mean that men who had worked for the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence agencies likely helped plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks.

Saturday, 21 July 2012

"I was told about the attack on the World Trade Center
on 9/11 about a year and a half before it happened."

- Best-selling author Nelson DeMille [1]

Members of New York's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) were predicting, almost two years before 9/11, that terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center. JTTF members described their prediction to best-selling thriller writer Nelson DeMille while he was interviewing them as part of the research for his novel The Lion's Game.

The Lion's Game, written in 1999 and published in January 2000, is about a ruthless Libyan terrorist, known as "The Lion," who comes to the United States and goes on a killing spree. In an introduction to the paperback reissue of the book in 2010, DeMille explained that when he interviewed members of the New York JTTF during his research for the book, he kept hearing about "the next attack." Nearly two years before 9/11, the JTTF members told him that the "World Trade Center would again be targeted, and the attack would be carried out by suicide pilots, flying small private jets loaded with fuel and explosives, which would be flown into the North and South Towers of the Trade Center." [2]

TASK FORCE PREDICTED ATTACK USING 'LEARJETS FULL OF EXPLOSIVES'DeMille has, in various interviews, given additional details of what the JTTF members told him.

The New York JTTF was established in 1980, to improve coordination between the FBI and the New York Police Department in the fight against terrorism. [3] The task force, which had exclusive jurisdiction over local terrorism investigations, began with 11 FBI investigators and 11 members of the NYPD. But by 1999 it had grown to more than 140 members and included personnel from numerous other agencies, including the Port Authority Police Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Secret Service. [4] It also included more than a dozen CIA officers. [5] The New York JTTF was, according to the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, "on the forefront of the war against terrorism." [6]

DeMille told talk radio host Glenn Beck that while conducting research for The Lion's Game, he had been at 26 Federal Plaza, where the New York JTTF was located, and, he recalled, "Just in passing we were talking about the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center." DeMille had asked the JTTF members: "What do you think the next attack would be? Will there be another attack?" They replied that the target of the next terrorist attack in the United States would be the World Trade Center again. They said, "Look, they missed and they're gonna do it next time." [7]

(Presumably, when the JTTF members said "they missed," they meant that the terrorists had failed to cause the Twin Towers to collapse when they bombed the WTC in 1993. After all, the bomb the terrorists used had been placed at the correct location, in the parking garage beneath the WTC, so it had not missed its target. But the terrorists supposedly intended for the explosion to topple one of the towers, causing it to crash into the other tower and bringing them both down. [8])

DeMille pointed out to the JTTF members, "Well, you know, this car bomb in the basement [used in the 1993 attack] really didn't do much." They replied: "No, no, no. It's gonna be Learjets." [9] (Learjets are small private aircraft.) They said there would be "two or three or four Learjets" used in the attack. [10] These planes, they said, would be "full of explosives and full of gasoline." The JTTF members, according to DeMille, were "positive" that that next terrorist attack in the U.S. "was gonna be Learjets full of explosives." The Learjets would be flown by "suicide pilots" into "both towers" of the World Trade Center. [11] And the pilots would be "guys who know how to fly and not [how] to land." [12]

TASK FORCE MEMBERS 'KNEW' THE WORLD TRADE CENTER WOULD BE THE TARGET OF THE NEXT ATTACKThe JTTF members also said they "knew" the target of the attack "was gonna be the World Trade Center. They were pretty definite about that." DeMille asked: "Why not any other iconic landmark? Why not the Empire State Building?" The JTTF members replied that the terrorists would be "looking for maximum death." DeMille pointed out to talk radio host John Gambling, "The Empire State Building doesn't have as many people, obviously, as the Twin Towers." DeMille then asked the JTTF members, "How about something like the Statue of Liberty?" but they told him that the terrorists were "not after symbols or icons. They're after maximum death." [13]

DeMille told the New York Times that the members of the JTTF "were all obsessed with the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and they were convinced we'd be attacked again." [14] He similarly told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that he "interviewed many people in the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and a few people in the CIA," and they "all knew the World Trade Center would be attacked again." [15] Furthermore, DeMille said, the JTTF members "knew that Arabs were training in the United States to fly small planes." [16]

Glenn Beck commented to DeMille that what the New York JTTF members told him "shows that [the U.S. government] really, they knew specifically" what the 9/11 attacks would involve. DeMille responded, "Yeah, they knew." [17] DeMille told another interviewer that when planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he found it "just chilling to think that [the JTTF] had some, if not foreknowledge, at least some forethought of this." [18]

NOVEL INCLUDES TERRORIST ATTACK ON 'FLIGHT 175' BOUND FOR NEW YORKDespite what he was told by the members of the JTTF, DeMille did not include the scenario of terrorists crashing planes into the WTC in The Lion's Game. Curiously, though, the novel begins with The Lion carrying out a terrorist attack on a "Flight 175" that is bound for New York. [19] (The second plane to hit the World Trade Center on September 11 was also a Flight 175--a United Airlines Boeing 767 originally bound from Boston to Los Angeles. [20] Flight 175 in The Lion's Game is slightly different, in that it belongs to "Trans-Continental Airlines," is a Boeing 747, comes from Paris, France, and New York is its original, intended destination. [21])

The Lion carries out his attack on Trans-Continental Flight 175 using poison gas, and causes the deaths of everyone on board--over 300 people--except himself. (He knew the plane was programmed to land at New York's JFK International Airport on autopilot, and so would still land safely if the pilots were killed.) [22]

Is it a coincidence that The Lion's Game includes a terrorist attack on an aircraft with the same flight number as one of the planes used in the 9/11 attacks? Or might one of DeMille's sources--perhaps a member of the New York JTTF--have had foreknowledge of the flight number of one (or more) of the planes that would be hijacked on September 11 and passed on this information to DeMille, who then managed to incorporate the detail into his book?

NOVEL INCLUDES NUMEROUS MENTIONS OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTERDeMille told Newsweek that he regretted omitting the scenario of terrorists crashing planes into the World Trade Center from The Lion's Game, because such a storyline would have been "a kind of wake-up call, an alert." [23] However, presumably influenced by what members of the JTTF had told him, he included in the novel numerous mentions of the WTC and the bombing of the North Tower in 1993.

The Lion's Game tells the story of Asad Khalil, also known as "The Lion," coming to the United States to get violent revenge for the American air strikes against Libya on April 15, 1986, which were carried out in retaliation for the terrorist bombing of a West German disco in which two Americans were killed. On Khalil's trail is ex-NYPD detective John Corey, who is attached to the fictional "Anti-Terrorist Task Force," which is based on the New York JTTF. [24]

In one scene, Khalil is being driven through New York and his taxi driver points out the Twin Towers to him. Looking at them, Khalil says, "Maybe next time." [25] (Khalil presumably means that the "next time" there is an attack on the WTC, the towers will be brought down.)

In another scene, DeMille describes how the desk of Jack Koenig, the head of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, at 26 Federal Plaza "was arranged so that every time [Koenig] looked out the window, he could see these [WTC] towers, and he could contemplate what some Arab gentlemen had prayed for when they had driven an explosive-filled van into the basement parking garage--namely, the collapse of the South Tower and the death of over 50,000 people in the tower and on the ground." When Corey looks out the window of Koenig's office at the Twin Towers, Koenig asks him, "Are they still standing?" [26]

The Lion's Game also mentions the threat posed by Islamic terrorists. Early in the story, FBI agent Kate Mayfield tells Corey that "Islamic groups ... are potentially dangerous to national security." She says, "The whole country is paranoid about a Mideast terrorist biological attack or a nuclear or chemical attack," and so, she says, the "real action" in the Anti-Terrorist Task Force "is in the Mideast section." [27] One review, published in March 2000, even mentioned that the plot of The Lion's Game "reads eerily like recent news stories of the worldwide bin Laden terrorist conspiracy." [28]

AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT SHOWS 9/11 ATTACKS WERE PREDICTEDWhat the members of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force told Nelson DeMille, regarding what the next terrorist attack in the United States would involve, disproves any claims that the 9/11 attacks were a surprise and were impossible to predict beforehand. As a result of hearing the JTTF's prediction, DeMille wrote: "[W]hen the events of the morning of September 11, 2001, unfolded, I was not taken completely unaware. And neither were the people who had spent years investigating terrorist threats to this country." [29] DeMille has noted that the JTTF members "were close to right" about the nature of the attack. "They knew the target and they knew the method," he said. [30]

This issue, however, needs further examination to see if there is more significance to the JTTF's apparent foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. We need to know, for example, why, in 1999 or early 2000, the JTTF members were so sure that the World Trade Center would be the target of the next terrorist attack in the U.S. Had they received information indicating this would be the case? If so, what was this information and from where did it come? What else did they know about the next attack in the U.S.? And what action did they take as a result of receiving this information?

Furthermore, we need to know if other government agencies expected an attack of the kind the JTTF was predicting. The New York JTTF, after all, included representatives from numerous agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NYPD, and the Secret Service. So did JTTF members share the task force's concerns with the agencies they worked for?

Questions like these surely need to be answered if we are to properly understand what happened on September 11, 2001, and find out who was responsible for the terrorist attacks that day.